Man, that "internet blows" article really managed to capture everything I complain about here every time an article about ISP's comes up.

Additionally, government funding designed to prop up rural broadband service fell from $454,200 in 2009 to $169,196 in 2013.

Of course, followed by the the EBTC guy...

Rorabaugh wishes large content providers had to pay to send data over his network. "Netflix can come in and use the network that exists here and not have to pay a penny for it," he said. "You would think they would be obligated or should feel obligated to help support the network that generates their revenue."

No, see, we already paid for it. That was the government money you mentioned earlier, sir, the cash that built the network that you're still getting subsidized for maintaining. Netflix isn't using the network, the customers are using it to access Netflix (or would be, if the bandwidth cap wasn't ass and costs through the roof).

In his written response to McElroy, Rorabaugh said, "We considered an overall increase to our previous packages but thought it was unfair for the 70% who use less than 15GB to subsidize the 10% who consume 50GB - 100+GB. We have attempted to construct a pricing structure that fits a majority of our actual customers

Or that, where it's ignored that customers have the smaller cap and usage because it's a 40% increase in montly cost to go to the next higher tier, or...

Anyway, yeah. And Net Neutrality is struck down, with comments made that consumers can switch to the competition if they don't like what ISP's choose to do afterward.

Brumbek wrote on Jan 21, 2014, 14:21:Anyway, sorry to hijack, but Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen is easily one of the greatest video games ever made in my opinion, not joking.

Totally agree. It's easily my favorite game from the last few years, one of my favorites ever really.

PHJF wrote on Jan 21, 2014, 14:29:My copy of Dark Arisen arrives here tomorrow. As much as I loved Dogma (I got it release week), Dark Arisen being standalone and $40 was a spit in the face to owners of the original.

As much as I understand that, I didn't mind buying it when it came out because I knew I'd get my money's worth out of it when I did. You'll get a lot of play time out of it, and it's definitely challenging in a way that the original wasn't after you got to a higher level. DA is still pretty tough well into the 100's.

Cutter wrote on Jan 20, 2014, 20:41:I'll never understand about people who rail against the social safety nets like welfare, unemployment insurance, etc. when they're handing out millions and billions to millionaires and billionaires.

Welfare recipients can't afford to get people elected. There's really no way to expect fair representation when corporations can donate as if they were people and lobby on (and for) pocket books individuals can't even dream of.

Creston wrote on Jan 17, 2014, 12:48:Because MS doesn't want you playing games on their OS. They want you to a buy a failbox instead. Five years down the road, we may all be thanking Valve to having the foresight to create SteamOS.

Why would you need to reboot? I'm sure you can get SteamOS to just VM a windows install.

I don't believe for a second that they're trying to discourage playing games on Windows PC's, even if they aren't vigorously promoting it.

You also need a Windows license to VM the OS, and if you're going to do that... you might as well just use it as your primary instead, since it's more versatile and gives you more options than running the SteamOS would.

InBlack wrote on Jan 16, 2014, 14:13:Or to put it more simply, websites that dont pay a premium will simply be much slower than those that do.

Whoever doesn't pay gets throttled, or whoever the ISP doesn't want to pay for gets throttled. ISP is using up too much bandwidth, and incurring the most costs from torrents? Throttle torrents down so they can only operate at low speeds. They probably can't get away with throttling Netflix, but smaller video sites they can, or porn sites that few would be brave enough to complain to them about messing with. If Google wanted to stifle competition, they could make deals with ISP's to maximize YouTube traffic while limiting Vimeo, or something similar. It basically opens up a gigantic shitstorm that isn't good for anyone that's not making money off of limiting access to things we've been able to do freely up until now.

It's all compounded by the fact that a large portion of the country has no choice in ISP in the first place, so switching to a competitor if one of them starts to act like a dick isn't even an option for most people in a non-urban setting. There's nothing to stop them from doing it at all when they know their consumers either take it or have nothing.

Yosemite Sam wrote on Jan 16, 2014, 14:50:Yay all my dirty money is gone and I can play GTAO again... well except that I started playing Dragons Dogma and it's friken awesome! Seriously one of the best RPGs since, since, Baldurs Gate! So GTAO is gonna have to wait now cause I found a new addiction.

I love Dragon's Dogma, I really wish they had released a PC version of it.

Well, if an ISP does something you don't like you can always just get internet access from a competitor. Except, I guess, in almost all of non-urban settings where we either don't have a choice or places have actually outright purchased a monopoly on broadband in those areas.

You know if Verizon was as fast as they were to show how thrilled they were at having net neutrality struck down (the company that didn't even want to have to tell people they were throttling their access) that you should be worried from the consumer end.

Jraptor59 wrote on Jan 14, 2014, 11:22:I guess we are solidly in the era of paying $30 for beta access (they say the beta period still has a year to go before the game is ready).

This is part of the problem that I have with Early Access, which is not really what you're saying here but how it's interpreted.

Early Access is Kickstarting a game project where you get something right away instead of spending your money and then waiting a year for something to materialize. It shouldn't be looked at as paying for a beta, but there's never been anything done to discourage that when the games are sold alongside finished games and even put on sale now with them.

I think their problem is that nobody is stocking them in a way that you can go in and buy them easily anyway. Ordering the games online is easy enough, but Gamestop or department stores have never really put any space into Vita games or maintaining a display to sell them. I can't imagine they have a decent choice because of the way retailers have handled the system, they're sort of damned if they do and damned if they don't.

xXBatmanXx wrote on Jan 11, 2014, 22:51:Eh, I enjoy it - not sure what all the hate is about. It is a simplified Skyrim.

That makes it sound pretty bad, honestly

I'd say it's the simple issue of being taken out of your control on where to go and what to do and putting you on MMO theme park rails to do anything. The sense of exploration is sacrificed to add zone-based quest progression. I don't think it's anything like Skyrim because of that, personally.

Consoles haven't been single purpose for over a decade. Even the PS2 was one of the more popular DVD players out there, the PS3 was pretty much the only viable blu-ray player for quite a while, and all of last gen's systems were popular for streaming content. The funny thing about his declaration is that the new consoles at the moment do less than last gen's did in this regard.

That texting thing is a little misleading as they're talking about messaging people via computer and not what I think most people would think of when they hear "texting." Apparently writing articles about texting turns people into liars, too.